


a place to sleep

by peterandhispirate



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Relationship, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 17:40:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19361572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterandhispirate/pseuds/peterandhispirate
Summary: Tony finds Bucky half-naked and wielding a knife at three in the morning.They've never really talked before.





	a place to sleep

Tony's relationship with the Winter Soldier was strange, to say the least. For the longest time they had simply ignored each other - Bucky didn't acknowledge Tony, and Tony didn't acknowledge the douchebag who killed his parents.  
  
It wasn't a perfect system, but it worked. A win-win.  
  
But like not-so-parallel lines, they were bound to intersect at some point. And so they did. Tony had been roaming the compound at three in the morning, glancing out windows with eyes all half-lidded and glassy. As a textbook insomniac, it wasn't an unusual thing for him to be doing.   
  
No, the unusual part came in when he saw Bucky.   
  
Tony stopped dead. The moonlight seeping through the windows outlined the Soldier in a cold, watery silver, highlighting the fact that he was wearing nothing but boxers.   
  
He was also clutching a kitchen knife. Both of these details were a lot to take in.  
  
Fortunately for Tony, Barnes was paying him no mind. He just kept staring out into the dark, body coiled like a set trap. His face was... Well. He looked scared. Terrified, even.  
  
That was the difference between Barnes and the senseless, soulless animal that crushed Maria Stark's windpipe. The animal didn't get scared.   
  
There was a difference. Tony was trying his best to understand that.  
  
Slowly raising both hands as if in surrender, he took a tentative step towards the non-animal, asking, "Anything interesting out there?"  
  
Bucky turned his head then, and Tony felt his stomach do an entire goddamn gymnastics routine. The knife looked like a toothpick in comparison to the Soldier's hands, but it glittered in the moonlight all the same. Bucky's eyes were glittering, too - not with cruelty but with panic. He reminded Tony of a spooked horse.  
  
"Nothing good, huh?" Another step. Tony's heart grated against his ribs. "Not even a firefly?"  
  
He wasn't really expecting an answer. They'd never had an actual conversation before; why would that change?  
  
But it did change, because for the first time ever, Bucky decided to open his mouth.  
  
"They're here," he croaked, gripping the knife a little tighter. "For me."  
  
A crease appeared in Tony's forehead. "Who's here?"  
  
"My handlers. They're here to take me back." Bucky's eyes flashed like twin storms - thunder and lightning. "I don't wanna go back."  
  
"You're not going anywhere," Tony told him, which was funny, because just a few months ago he would've _killed_ for Bucky's disappearance.  
  
Hell must've been freezing over.  
  
Bucky hesitated, chest rising and falling like he was struggling to breathe. "Promise?"  
  
"Yeah." Tony cleared his throat. "Yeah, I promise."  
  
That seemed to ease some of the tension out of Bucky's broad shoulders. Lowering the knife just a little, he stole another glance outside, his Adam's apple bobbing like a ship on an ocean of paranoia.  
  
"I can see 'em out there," he said in a rasp. "Moving around."  
  
Tony had lived through enough PTSD-induced episodes to know that he needed to play along. There was no way to convince Barnes that these people he was seeing - his handlers, his tormentors, his destroyers - weren't actually there. Disagreeing with him would only amp up the anxiety by ten.  
  
So Tony didn't roll his eyes and say "there's nothing out there, you crazy son of a bitch." He just made his way over to the window, peered outside, and said, "Well, they're not getting in. You're perfectly safe."  
  
Bucky looked from Tony to the window and back again before finally nodding, his mouth a grim line. That's when Tony reached out - slowly, carefully - and eased the knife from his grip, mumbling, "Let's put this back before we have a Scream situation on our hands."  
  
Thankfully, the Soldier didn't object. He just furrowed his eyebrows at Tony, painfully oblivious. He somehow managed to make confusion a thing of beauty.  
  
"You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?" Tony's mouth twitched into an almost-smile. "Tell you what: we'll watch it tomorrow night. Sound like a plan?"  
  
Bucky paused, then nodded again, strands of hair falling delicately in front of his eyes.  
  
"Fantastic." Starting to back away from the window, Tony hooked a thumb over his shoulder and said, "You can sleep in my bed if you want. Unless you'd rather be alone."  
  
Barnes shook his head so vigorously that it almost flew off his goddamn shoulders; Tony wouldn't have declined, either.  
  
"All right then. Follow me."  
  
The Soldier trailing not far behind, Tony padded through the darkness to his room, dropping the knife off in the kitchen along the way. He buried himself under the covers almost immediately - unlike Bucky, who lingered in the doorway like a big shy silhouette.  
  
"C'mon," Tony mumbled, patting the space beside him for emphasis. "I promise I won't kick you in your sleep. Unless you kick me first, obviously. Then I'll have to take direct action."  
  
Bucky hesitated a few seconds longer before leaving the threshold behind so he could crawl under the sheets and curl up like an oversized cat, positioning himself at the very edge of the bed with his back to Tony. It wasn't a snub - he just didn't want to intrude on anyone's space, which was kind of hard, because he was a big dude.  
  
The big dude in question fell asleep first, which was nothing short of a miracle. Tony just kept staring at the ceiling, hands balanced on his stomach as he listened to the quiet lull of Bucky's breathing, gentle and sweet and surprisingly steady.  
  
Tony wondered how long it had been since he'd slept this peacefully. Years, maybe.  
  
Tony's train of thought was derailed when the bed creaked and the blankets rustled, and then there was a metal arm slung over his chest, and a stubbly face pressed against his neck, and holy shit, was he really being spooned by the Winter fucking Soldier?  
  
Yes. Yes, he was.  
  
Tony didn't mind. Really, he didn't. And maybe that was weird, because this was still the guy who killed his parents.  
  
_There's a difference, remember?_  
  
No, this wasn't the same guy. This was Bucky Barnes, and Bucky Barnes felt soft and warm and _safe_. So Tony said "fuck it" and wiggled further into his touch, further into the addictive closeness of it all.  
  
So what if it was weird? Strange things happened every goddamn day.   
  
Strange, but sort of wonderful, too.  


**Author's Note:**

> @bastardbeck on tumblr :^)


End file.
